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Many people barter. It's pretty common in rural areas. There are many websites devoted to bartering. Only a small percentage of people ever consider doing this.
Bartering is not done because it requires a lot of bookkeeping and taxes to maintain legality. Firstly, there is a sales tax on anything that you purchase to barter. Secondly, when you sell your item, you have to pay capital gains taxes if the price of the bartered item changes (in dollars). Imagine if a store had to keep track of the value of... say... every transaction of silver coins that it exchanges... it would be a bookkeeping nightmare. Finally, there's Gresham's law: people will pass off trade bad money and keep good money... like passing a hot potato. Nobody wants to hang onto a thing with a lower perceived value than the thing that they get in trade.
Well then if you know what it is, you should know that the monetary system is NOT " so complex that it is harder than 99% of us can ever understand".
Isn't that what you said?
All people need to do to get the gist of how fraudulent central banking or all banking is for that matter is to first understand the fractional reserve lending system.
Yes, that is what I said and I stand by that statement. Most people do not fully understand the monetary system. It is too complex for the large majority of people to wrap their heads around. "Most" people are not on forums such as this one where there is a large amount of valuable information via the links and information that is posted.
Bartering is not done because it requires a lot of bookkeeping and taxes to maintain legality. Firstly, there is a sales tax on anything that you purchase to barter. Secondly, when you sell your item, you have to pay capital gains taxes if the price of the bartered item changes (in dollars). Imagine if a store had to keep track of the value of... say... every transaction of silver coins that it exchanges... it would be a bookkeeping nightmare. Finally, there's Gresham's law: people will pass off trade bad money and keep good money... like passing a hot potato. Nobody wants to hang onto a thing with a lower perceived value than the thing that they get in trade.
Bartering is inefficient as a primary method of exchange. It can be used only as an adjunct to money exchange. Nevertheless, people do it casually and privately with their friends, neighbors and small businesses in their area and some are very good at it. Think of it as a variant of "couponing".
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